I Only Play Harp for Punk Rock
by Sattar
Summary: For "art college rock band AU" prompt.


And they say there are no heroes in this age, Erica Hawke thinks, drawing boobs and mabari puppies in her notebook and trying to get used to a heavy stench of smoke. The smell of cheap cigarettes is coming from a monster from whom she is heroically saving people right now. Doing a group project with the Gargoyle is a no small deed. Gargoyle is the twitchy tevinter guy, who's called that because he is constantly hunched over, wears same ugly old grey hoodie the size of an elephant tent with hood always up and spends breaks crouched on the roof. Also he inexplicably has a reputation of being a jerk, even though he never talks to anybody. Adding the fact that he smells like a walking ashtray, it's really of no surprise that there was a small commotion, because nobody wanted to be paired up with him.

They've been sitting side by side for the last fifteen minutes and he haven't said a word.

Okay, they clearly need to break the ice. The problem is that Hawke doesn't have a lot of experience in doing that, because being a lead singer in a local rock band means that people have a strong opinion about you before you even start talking. Whether it's good or bad opinions, there are few standard conversation topics varying from "omg it's so cool" to "Maker hates you" and Erica usually doesn't even need to start them. But this guy just ignores her the whole time.

She glances at him, searching for possible conversation clues. The elf is staring in the book with a severity of a military interrogator. Quick notes he takes from time to time feel like confessions wrangled out of the suspect. Hawke squints up and notices pale icy lines on his hands and same ones running down his chin - at least in places she can see out of the crumpled hoodie..

 _A-ha!_

"Cool tattoos," she says nonchalantly.

He finally looks up at her, but it's not as much as breaking the ice as pouring acid at it until it melts. He glares at her for few moments silently, then gets back to interrogating the book.

 _Eesh._

"Interesting choice of color," she tries again, because no one can say that Hawke gives up easily, "looks great on your skin."

There's an open hostility in his glare now.

"It wasn't my choice," he growls through his teeth.

She blinks for few seconds and refuses the urge to ask questions. Instead, she remembers his name and holds up her hands.

"Look, Fenris, I'm sorry if I said something stupid? I didn't want to offend you or anything, I was just trying to start a conversation. Usually people with extensive tattoos love to talk about it, you know."

He arches an eyebrow. His eyebrows are wide and black and look weird under the white bangs.

"Why would you want to start a conversation?"

"Errr… It's a common belief that people are supposed to communicate during group projects?"

He raises his eyebrow higher, so now it's on the level usually reserved for cartoon villains.

"Perhaps you should try to outgrow such superstitions."

It takes her a second, but then she sees the humorous sparks in his eyes and grins, trying to hide surprise.

 _He's joking? I mean, he's even able to?_

"I apologize if I appeared unnecessarily rude, it wasn't my intention," he tilts his head with a ghost of a smile and his hood slips down, revealing a disheveled mane of tangled white hair that either never knew a hairbrush or was styled for few hours. There are also a sculpted jawline and cheekbones so sharp and high, you'd need to jump to cut yourself with them. Not to mention that when he doesn't narrow his eyes to glare, they are huge and bright green.

 _Oh hey, he's handsome._

"What's a point of getting a group project with a gorgeous guy if he doesn't even talk to you?"

She doesn't really expect a positive reaction, but he blinks and then blushes with an embarrassed chuckle, that he tries to cover with a cough as he looks down to the book, hiding his eyes under the fallen bangs. He awkwardly tugs a hood up and she notices that his fingers are long and slender under the tattoo lines.

 _Oh fuck. He's adorable._

Hawke smiles, playing with her silver necklaces. On the other hand, under this tent of an ugly ass hoodie there's obviously a scrawny construction of limp noodles held by angularly placed chopsticks. He looks too skinny even for a nerd elf. And Maker's breath, does he bath in cigarette ash?

"So, we should discuss the assignment, right? Changes in presentation of global cultural symbols depending on a region, first part - religious. Andraste image, of course."

He looks up again. The pointy end of one of his ears is sticking out from under the hood in awkward angle and is still reddish from blushing.

 _Aw boy…_

"We should do Ferelden first," she bites her lip.

He spreads his shoulders, visibly regaining his composure.

"Well, what's there to talk about? They just stuck a mabari to her."

"Hey! I'm from Ferelden."

"My apologies. *You* just stuck a mabari to her."

She grins wide and mischievously.

"I can see where your reputation of an asshole comes from."

He gives her a lopsided smirk.

"To be fair, she's also got an extensive fur coverage."

 _Sure, he's kind of a jerk, but he's a fun kind of a jerk._

Hawke walks up to the music class where she agreed to meet with the were-gargoyle to work on the assignment, but mostly because now she was curious. She stumbles in doorway, when she hears "Antivan rhapsody" flowing from inside. When she looks in, the hunched grey figure at the piano looks up.

"You're late," the elf says, stopping playing.

"You didn't say you play piano."

He shrugs.

"You didn't ask."

"Well, I didn't ask a lot of things because I didn't think I need to! Can you fly? Have you ever punched a bear? Do you play any other instruments?"

"No and no, and I can play harp, but I hate it, so practically speaking also no. "

"You know what… It's such a lucky coincidence! Can you do me a favor? My brother threw a temper tantrum - again - and now we don't have anyone to play keyboard on sunday. It's a guest appearance, so it's just a couple of songs!"

He raises an eyebrow into the villain pose again.

"This an art college. People who can play piano are not exactly a rare commodity."

"Yeah, but how many of them are good-looking sarcastic jerks? I have standards, dude."

He looks at her for a long silent minute, then shrugs.

"I'll think about it. Perhaps now we can try to actually do the assignment?"

Erica grins and flops down on the bench next to him, while he searches for the notes in his bag. She notices a yellow folder with A4 photographs sticking out.

"Photography project?" she asks, nodding at the folder.

Fenris shoots her a wary glance and shrugs.

"Can I see it? Please?"

"It's not finished," he mumbles, but hands her the folder anyway.

It's a series of photographs from all over the city and on few of them there are cut-out figures from classic paintings sticked in, like they're part of a picture. A shot of two cages from the zoo, a tired lion in one of them and the heraldica of Grey Warden's griffon in the other. Shartan, the leader of elven rebellion who joined Andraste, stands next to few elf beggars, crouched under the Chantry walls.

"That's really cool! I really like the idea."

"Thank you," he says with a slight surprise.

"The quality of photos are crap though. This concept deserves better."

"I could only get the cheapest camera."

"I have a good one, you can borrow it."

Fenris suddenly narrows his eyes.

"I don't need your pity."

"What? It's not a pity! I really think that's a cool idea and would like to see it getting an execution it deserves."

He still looks at her with suspicion.

"How about quid pro quo, then? I lend you my camera, you help me in the band."

"Is it some sort of a prank? Yesterday you were upset to be paired up with me and now you're trying to drag me into this band at all cost?"

She blinked.

"Excuse me, I'm only doing it since yesterday because before that I didn't have any idea what's you're like! Was I supposed to pierce the ugly hermit hoodie and read you mind?"

After the "ugly hermit hoodie" it was his turn to blink.

"Besides, what kind of prank could it be?"

"Certain types of… comedians enjoy nothing more than humiliation of people they've tricked into making fools of themselves."

It took her a second to proceed.

"You think I want to make fun of you? But if you expected that, why did you even came here today?"

He doesn't say a word, just looking at her with stubbornly clenched jaw, tension and defensiveness written in every line of his body, from hunched shoulders to white-knuckled grip on the corner of a bench.

 _A proud prickly guy who spends his time smoking on the roof and expects to be ignored even by people he' in study groups with. He's just so lonely, he's willing to risk it._

"You should have some faith in humanity," Erica says softly. "I would never do that."

He relaxes a little, though still looks at her with scrutiny.

"Even if the band thing doesn't work out, come anyway. I think it'd be fun to hang out."

Finally he answers her smile with his tentative one.

"Ugly hermit hoodie?"

"What, have you ever seen it in a mirror?"

"Well, it is ugly, I suppose. But t-shirt I have under is worse, it's too small and has holes, so I figured it's better to wear this over."

"Show me! I'm pretty sure there's nothing that could be worse than this depressingly oversized garbage bag."

He flushes quickly and proceeds to take it off. Erica prepares not to stare to not make him uncomfortable, but she fails utterly. The emerging shirt is older than Hawke's dad, it's purple and bleached out, it has little worn-out holes all over it, advertises a sign of some obnoxious orange-green hot-dog place and it's the hottest view she's seen all day.

"Andraste's holy tampon… There were supposed to be limp noodles…"

"Excuse me?"

"It needs more holes. In fact, you should just wear a net."

Fenris looks up from tugging at his criminally undersized sleeveless piece of falling apart cloth and frowns in confusion.

"What?"

"I mean, daamn! Maybe I should give up on that Sculpture project and just bring you there, covered in paint."

Defensiveness sparks up in his eyes.

"Because I'm the Gargoyle?"

"Because you're goddamn chiseled!"

"Ah," he says, looking lost, and blushes.

"Well yeah, this shirt is very ugly, but in combination with these muscles, it can pass for a grunge. I mean, add few random words in paint and a bit of metal and it's gonna be positively post punk. Not like anyone is going to notice it anyway."

He chuckles awkwardly and runs his fingers through his hair.

 _Wait… is it me or the cigarette cloud of death eased up? Is this stench coming mostly from the hoodie?_

"You should burn it or it's gonna ruin your life," she says with a lot of feeling.

"Are we going to ever get to the actual assignment?"

"If you don't want to tell me about yourself instead, then fine."

He rolls his eyes, but without actual rancor, and smirks, passing her the book.

"I can leave the hermit hoodie off."

"Thank you," she answers, grinning.


End file.
